


Nothing Gets Crossed Out

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Series: Operating On Uncertainty Principles [2]
Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-11
Updated: 2010-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after the split, Spencer runs into Jon in an LA bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Gets Crossed Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foxxcub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxxcub/gifts).



It's pretty crowded for a Tuesday night. There's some European soccer game blaring on both of the big screens, but no one's watching, too busy networking or trying to hook up. It's very LA; all the self-conscious trappings of an English pub, with tall bar stools and retro dartboards, dark wood-paneled walls and a busy carpet almost sublime in its incredible ugliness, brown and olive and tawny, but it falls down on the details.

The wall behind the bar is hung with scallop-edged speckled mirrors from the seventies, and there are a dozen microbrews with names he's never heard of scrawled on the blackboard, the prices given in pints. Spencer orders a beer pretty much because it's got the longest, weirdest name ( _hints of fig_ , the blackboard says, _accents of brown cane sugar_ ), and when the barmaid - seriously, an actual barmaid - passes him his beer in an enormous old-fashioned glass mug, he takes a seat and checks the place out. It's mostly full of hipsters, twentysomethings in tweeds and plaids that Ryan would probably covet, hanging out before word of mouth spreads far enough that it's not worth being seen here any more. One guy has a huge fake handlebar mustache - at least, Spencer guesses it's fake, and serious kudos if it's real.

He rubs the edge of his thumb against his upper lip meditatively, wondering whether, if he stopped trimming and used wax or something, he could get his to do that. Brendon would probably think it was a great idea, and then silently die of envy. He's dwelling fondly on this vision when someone behind him jostles his elbow, and foam sloshes over the side of his mug and slops over his knuckles. "Oh, shit, sorry," the dead man responsible says when Spencer starts to turn around, and he does sound like he means it.

Spencer shrugs one-shouldered in irritation, letting it go. "No big," he says shortly, and he's about to ask the guy to pass him a couple of napkins when someone else snags his attention, standing over on the other side of the room. It's some familiarity of stance and build that strikes him; he tells himself that it's pretty fucking stupid, he can't recognise a guy standing with his back to him, actually watching the game; all Spencer can see are his shoulders and the back of his head. Then he turns his head a little, and the slice of his cheek in profile just makes the instinctive _hey I know that guy_ ping Spencer even harder.

Jon. He knows Jon. Spencer lifts a hand and waves, half-heartedly, in case he's wrong. The guy must catch the flicker of movement, because he turns around properly, head cocked in attention. And yeah, it's Jon, and for a second it doesn't even strike Spencer as all that weird to see him here or to wave him over, despite the past year. His brain still accepts Jon as part of the familiar furniture of his life, right down in the deep lizard levels.

Jon's eyes widen a little when he sees him, and it takes a second for him to smile back, a little uncertainly, across the crowd. The hesitation reminds Spencer that it _is_ kind of weird, but he shrugs mentally - he's committed now - and waves again, tilting his head in question. Jon's mouth quirks sideways, and then he picks up his half-empty beer, cradling it close to his chest, and makes his way around the bar.

"Hey," Spencer says when he gets in earshot, and offers his hand for Jon to shake. They would've hugged, a year ago. "Hey, man. What are you doing in L.A.? Chicago freeze you out?"

"Just here for the week." Jon leans against the bar, and Spencer moves his drink closer and gestures for him to sit down. "We've got a couple of shows here. How are you doing?"

"Good," Spencer says. "We're doing great. Still recording."

"I meant, like," Jon starts, then shakes his head. "Okay, that's good."

"You should've given us a call. We would've grabbed lunch with you, or met up for a drink, or something, dude."

Jon shrugs. "I guess we're having a drink now." The significant look he gives Spencer over his beer is one of those dense tangled ones he's surprisingly good at, that could mean anything from _because I didn't want to_ to _Maybe I didn't think you'd want me to_ to _Why would I even think of doing that?_

It could even mean _When you guys had a show in Chicago you didn't give me a call_ , and that's something Spencer didn't even really think seriously about doing at the time and hasn't thought about since, but somehow with Jon looking levelly at him it rises right back to the surface of his consciousness, oily with guilt. Oh yeah, Spencer hadn't missed how frustrating and passive-aggressive Jon can be, sometimes. The worst thing is, if you say something like 'What's that look supposed to mean?', Jon just looks clueless and says 'What look?'

"Guess we are," Spencer says, instead. "Must be fate, or luck, or something. Brendon'll be sorry to have missed you, though."

Jon shrugs again, and takes a sip of his beer. A faint trace of moisture glistens on his lip when he puts down the mug with a solid glassy clunk, tiny drops caught in the stubble of his short beard and glinting in the dim light. "I'm here for the week," he says mildly. "How's Brendon doing? I don't need to ask, I guess, since you're talking in the plural."

Spencer laughs a little, under his breath. "Shit, again? I guess it's just, you know. Being in the studio and stuff. Living together. I keep doing it. Brendon, too. Shane keeps threatening to tape us together and make a short about, like, I don't know what you'd call it. That thing when your illness or whatever is totally in your mind? About mentally conjoined twins. He says it'd be deep and moving, but I don't know."

"He's fucking with you."

"No shit." He rolls his shoulders, working them loose. "Brendon's good. He's happy when he's making music, you know that. And he's getting so fucking domestic with Sarah, you wouldn't even believe it."

"The tiger tamed," Jon says. "Finally. Yeah, I wondered about that, too. And you, speaking just for yourself?"

"Also happy making music," Spencer says lightly. "And single, but hey. Someone has to be."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Jon sighs. "Uh, that's not a suggestion. I just mean, I'm crashing at Ryan's, but he's doing something with Z, and Eric's on the road, so I'm kicking around on my own tonight." He glances around the bar, a little uncertain. "Ryan said this place is pretty good."

"Oh, it _figures_ ," Spencer breathes, laughing again. "I thought it looked like his kind of place when I came in."

"The guy in the deerhunter hat gave it away, right," Jon nods, and they grin at each other, some of edginess dissipating.

"Tell me he's got one. With the fuzzy earflaps. Please."

Jon's eyes flicker from side to side, like he's checking for eavesdroppers, and then he taps the side of his nose, magnificently solemn. "He gets cold really easy," he whispers. "I'm not confirming or denying."

" _Knew_ it," Spencer says, satisfied, and tilts his mug to get the last of his beer.

"Another round? What're you drinking?"

"It's okay, dude, I've got this."

"I can cover it," Jon says, fumbling for his wallet. "You can get the next one, okay?"

It sounds fair, so Spencer lets himself relax a little. This is Jon, not Ryan; not everything has a thousand Byzantine meanings, folded over and over within each other like a nest of Russian dolls. Not that Jon doesn't play games just like the rest of them, but he plays them differently; he'd been in the band a while before Spencer even realised that he wasn't the one hundred percent uncomplicated dudebro he was pretty good at passing himself off as, or anything like as easygoing.

"I just picked one with a stupid name," he admits. "It was okay, but if you want to order for me, go ahead."

Jon crinkles his nose a little, squinting at the blackboard in concentration. "Okay, do you feel about, uh. 'Low notes of maple' and 'tender malt overtones', that sounds awesome, right?"

"What's it called?"

"I don't think I can pronounce it," Jon confesses, looking sheepish. "I've only had two beers, even, but."

"Definitely the right one, then," Spencer decides, and when the girl finally slides their beers over a few minutes of pretty pointless small talk later, he grins at Jon and knocks his glass against his before taking a drink. "Thanks."

Jon's eyebrows quirk, but he doesn't say anything. His hair's longer than Spencer's seen it in person for a good long while, shaggy around his shoulders, and his beard needs clipping, too. Maybe the mountain man look is part of whatever aesthetic Ryan's pushing now.

"Jealous?"

"What?"

"The beard," Jon says, fingering it. The soft thicket of hair along and under his jaw is about an inch or two long, not Old-Testament-patriarch dimensions, but long enough to change the shape of his face, hide his chin and disappear his adam's apple. "I see the awe in your eyes, man."

"How is that only your third beer?" Spencer asks. "Once upon a time, maybe, but I can grow my own now, nothing easier."

Once upon a time he couldn't, though, the summer Jon had joined the band; cool and grown-up and _older_ than them, in a way that seemed a lot more distant then than it did after the first year or so. That summer had been the first time they built their band over again, the first time he'd had a drink, the first time for other crazy things that seem unreal now, impossible. He hasn't thought about any of it for years, but the following winter he'd stopped shaving; his beard had been pretty pathetic at first, dark and downy, patchy on his jaw and only really in evidence on his neck.

"All grown up," Jon says quietly, and it's close enough to what Spencer's thinking that he looks up and meets Jon's eyes, and finds Jon giving him another of his deceptively placid looks that say a lot, but nothing that you can pin down.

"Where's your show?" he asks pleasantly, instead of pursuing it. "Your next local one. I could come along, wear some sort of disguise. Maybe a fake nose."

Jon's expression doesn't change a lot. "Dude, Ryan won't mind if you come," he says. "Not too much, anyway."

"Yeah, I meant because of, you know, other people," Spencer says, looking away and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Just in general, not Ryan. We're cool now, pretty much."

"Oh," Jon says, but the wince he makes doesn't strike Spencer as totally genuine. "Right, I'm sorry. I didn't know you guys were talking."

"We're not _not_ talking, anyway." Spencer catches the barmaid's attention again and signals for another round. He feels tired, suddenly, of the back-and-forth, civil as they're being. "I should get an early night. Let me buy your next round, and then I have to go."

"Early morning in the studio?" Jon asks, tilting his head. "I don't envy you. I was really happy when we wrapped our album up and I could go back to sleeping in."

Spencer smiles tightly. "Enjoy it while you can, man. Van tours take it out of you. I remember just walking around like a zombie back in the day. Wouldn’t do that again for anything."

Jon laughs, low and with an edge. "Well, we won't be doing it too long, I hope."

Spencer shrugs and puts a fifty down on the bar, which is way too much, but it makes a decent closing statement, and pushes his stool back.

Jon puts a hand on his arm, just above his wrist. It's not a firm hold or anything, but the touch makes Spencer stop, and go very still. Jon's hands are still brown and blunt-fingered, utterly familiar.

"Spencer," he says, and his eyes are dark and serious again. "Don't be in such a hurry, c'mon. Finish your drink." It could be apology or appeasement, or something else entirely. The best thing about the sideways way that Jon has always gone after what he wants is that Spencer can take any meaning from it he chooses, no pressure and no awkwardness for anyone. It's weird, but somehow he left that first summer cleanly behind in the past, and he genuinely hasn't thought about Jon like that in years. He's thinking about it now, though, staring at Jon's square capable hands with their neat fingernails, curled a little into his sleeve. They tighten.

"I'm not drunk enough to think it's a good idea," Spencer says evenly, ignoring the lurch of heat low in his belly, and Jon can take that to mean staying out any later tonight, or anything else he wants.

Jon doesn't say anything for a second. Then he says "Okay," easily, and looks away. After a moment, he uncurls his fingers, and Spencer reclaims his wrist, drawing it back. He can still feel the faint urging weight of Jon's hand. "Friday at eight, I can't remember the bar name, but I'm gonna twitter it. I can put your name on the door list, if you want."

"I'll pay, dude." Spencer smiles to take any sting out of it. "I'll be there, but who knows if you'll recognise me."

Jon smiles crookedly. "I hate to tell you this, man, but you're not the master of disguise you think you are." He holds out his hand; Spencer shakes it, then, when he can, lets go. "See you then."


End file.
